German sources are reporting the sad news that Eva Evdokimova died in New York earlier today, aged only 59. She had been suffering from cancer.

More details will no doubt follow.

This saddens me greatly as I first got to know Evie and her mother quite closely over a two week period in 1968 at the Varna International Ballet Competition. This extraordinary shy and rather fey young girl was to become an outstanding technician and a wonderful Giselle and as La Sylphide. I ran into her and her mother all over Europe and loved the period that she spent with Festival Ballet in London where I saw her perform on many occasions. I am finding it difficult to believe she has passed from this life as I had heard many admiring remarks regarding her teaching in America where she settled after her sojourn in Europe. Evie danced with many famous partners and had a wide and successful repertoire. To me she never changed from that shy teenager I first met over 40 years ago. To sad and too soon to have think only of her in memories.

Very sad news indeed. Eva inspired many through her great artistry, kindness and gentle nature. Rest in peace Eva. May her husband find strength in knowing that Eva was loved worldwide and inspired many. Very, very sad indeed.

German sources are reporting the sad news that Eva Evdokimova died in New York earlier today, aged only 59. She had been suffering from cancer.

More details will no doubt follow.

It is true that Eva Evdokimova passed away in New York in the morning of April 3. She was actually 60 years old. (Birthdate: December 1, 1948.)

As has already been said in these posts, Eva was a strikingly modest, gentle, sincere, thoughtful and generous person, in addition to being among the greatest ballerinas I have had the privilege to see perform.

It has often been said that others danced the role of the Sylphide but that Eva was the Sylphide. Like the sylph, she was playful, joyful, innocent, trusting, ethereal, and forgiving. I will never forget the image of her joyous clapping during a series of jetes--clapping out of childlike happiness and her pleasure at playing little jokes on James.

Her dancing was extraordinary--her interpretations were musical, intelligent, sensitive, and richly thought out. She told me that she adored developing a role, having time to mature in it, explore all of its possibilities and subtleties.

I was fortunate to have been able to study with Eva for seven years. Her demonstrations were in themselves a string of pearls: the beauty of her feet and legs as they worked through tendus and developpes at the barre, the delicacy and refinement of her epaulement, her extraordinary ballon, the pliancy and soft power of her sissones and other small jumps, even in her 50s. And then there was her commitment to a vision of ballet that was feminine, nuanced, refined, gracious, and well mannered. She was generous with her corrections, mild and soft-spoken in her manner, but she gave an uncompromising class. She had a will of steel and a voracious appetite for challenges and hard work, and her classes reflected the core of iron that underlay her elegant, mild, ladylike exterior.

She will be terribly, terribly missed by dancers, dancegoers, dance writers, and all the students who had the great good fortune to study with her and receive her coaching.

There are some clips of Eva in La Sylphide on YouTube. I urge readers who never got to see her dancing to watch these clips. They reveal a great deal about the person as well as the dancer.

If I may ask -- What, exactly, was Ms. Evdokimova's main company during her career? I remember her as a fine guest with Festival Ballet in the early 1980s -- that televised Sylphide with Schaufuss as James -- but I do not seem to recall that she had a permanent home troupe.

As others have described, I also found her to be an exceptionally frail ballerina which worked to her favor in Sylphide and Giselle. I remember her as lovely but somewhat ill-looking even in her youth. Then again, the great Taglioni was often described as being exceptionally frail...the trait of an ideal Sylphide.

If I may ask -- What, exactly, was Ms. Evdokimova's main company during her career? I remember her as a fine guest with Festival Ballet in the early 1980s -- that televised Sylphide with Schaufuss as James -- but I do not seem to recall that she had a permanent home troupe.

As others have described, I also found her to be an exceptionally frail ballerina which worked to her favor in Sylphide and Giselle. I remember her as lovely but somewhat ill-looking even in her youth. Then again, the great Taglioni was often described as being exceptionally frail...the trait of an ideal Sylphide.

She often looked exceptional pale and with dark circles under her eyes and was quite an introverted person dedicated to her art and when younger restricted by her mother in any social life. I very much like your bringing in in the descriptive analogy with Maria Taglioni who also travelled a great deal to dance with many companies.I am taking the advantage of your questions to add a brief biography of Eva.

Eva Evdokimova was the first American to win an international ballet competition( Varna 1970) and the first American winner of the 2005 Ulanova Prize in Moscow for selfless dedication to the art of ballet. Eva Evdokimova a US Citizen, was born in Switzerland on December 1, 1948 was of mixed American and Bulgarian parentage. Her mother worked for the U.N., and her father, a journalist, was a stateless refugee. Her early childhood was spent in Munich where she first studied ballet. She later come to London and studied at the Royal Ballet School. At the age of 17 she joined the Royal Danish Ballet (where she was a pupil of Vera Volkova to whom she gave great credit for her abilities) dancing in the corps de ballet then in 1969 she joined Berlin Ballet as a soloist and became a principal of that company with the title of Prima Ballerina during the period from 1973 - 1985. Despite her height, Rudolf Nureyev chose her to be his partner on many occasions for more than a decade. Over the years Eva acquired an enormous repertoire covering the Romantic and 19th century Russian classics and appeared in many 20th century classics. She appeared as a guest star with the Munich Ballet, both ABT and the National Ballet of Canada and many other companies. I remember an enthusiastic review by Jack Anderson in 1983, when she appeared in New York with Nureyev and the Boston Ballet as Kitri in Don Quixote. Eva retired from dancing in 1990 variously teaching and staging ballets thereafter. and was a judge at international ballet competitons.

Thank you for the bio, Leonid. To answer my own earlier question, I consulted the Oxford Dictionary of Ballet, which states that Ms Evdokimova was a ballerina for 16 years -- prima since 1975 -- with the Berlin Opera Ballet - one of three companies that later merged to form the Berlin Ballet that is now headed by Malakhov. However, most of the world knew her as a free-lancer guesting with more famous companies or with Nureyev's independent touring groups. So here is another accolade: she was a true pioneer in forging a first-class career without affiliating herself permanently with one of the "Big 6" ballet companies (Kirov, Bolshoi, RB, POB, NYCB and ABT).

RG, beside The Romantic Ballet that you cite, Evdokimova can be seen rehearsing an extended excerpt from Act II of Giselle in the documentary Bujones Winning at Varna. Those seem to be the only two commercially-available (now or recently)films in the USA. The Festival Ballet Sylphide made the rounds on US television in the early 1980s (Nickelodeon, Bravo, etc.) but was not made available commercially. Neither were some Bournonville excerpts that were televised in Denmark in the late 1960s, when she was a corps member there and can be spotted in small clusters. I would venture a guess that at least one of the several Nureyev documentaries in existence shows Evdokimova in performance and/or speaking; I just can't pinpoint it now. Finally, I cannot imagine that West German television did not feature her in many telecasts during the 1970s/80s.